It used to be that we'd take our 3DSes with us on holiday, public transit, and to hospital waiting rooms, because it was easy to pick up and put down a game on this tiny little handheld, and to put it into sleep mode whenever your attention was needed.

These days, we're more likely to take a Nintendo Switch with us whenever we know there will be long periods of downtime, and though a Switch isn't quite as portable as the chocolate-bar-sized 3DS, it can still fit in a bag or a very large pocket, if you're lucky. There are plenty of games on the Switch that slot in perfectly to a 15-30 minute session, too — so we've assembled a few of the best right here!

It's worth noting that pretty much any roguelike or puzzle game makes for great short play sessions, but we've tried to keep it a little varied, with online multiplayer games, story games, and even RPGs that work really well in short bursts. Enjoy!

Craft a unique deck of cards, encounter bizarre creatures and discover relics of immense power in Slay the Spire! Choose your cards wisely! Discover hundreds of cards to add to your deck with each attempt at climbing the Spire. Select cards that work together to efficiently dispatch foes and reach the top. Whenever you embark on a journey up the Spire, the layout differs each time. Choose a risky or safe path, face different enemies, choose different cards, discover different relics, and even fight different bosses!

It's incredibly easy to boot up Slay The Spire, take on a couple of fights, and dip out again. Just try to remember what your strategy plan was...

Gnosia is a sci-fi social deduction RPG in which you will engage in discussion with a variety of unique characters, with the aim of identifying the Gnosia among the group. Players will have to use what information they can gather during the discussions to ascertain whom they think is Gnosia and then vote to put them into cold sleep. As you progress, your abilities will improve - but so will those of the crew.

The timeloop nature of this one makes it easy to play an entire round in about 15 minutes!

In Dicey Dungeons, a fast-paced deckbuilding roguelike, you'll fight monsters, find better loot, and level up your heroes as you work together to take down the Goddess of Fortune, Lady Luck herself. Balance your carefully planned strategies against the unknown of a dice roll.

Battles are quick and simple, so you can easily play through a few in 10-20 minutes.

Cozy Grove measures out its game sessions in snack-size portions, with gorgeous artwork and genuinely laugh-worthy dialogue. As a Spirit Scout, you'll wander the island's forest each day, finding new hidden secrets and helping soothe the local ghosts. With a little time and a lot of crafting, you'll bring color and joy back to Cozy Grove.

This one is literally designed for 15-30 minute play sessions, and it will actually tell you to come back another time when there's nothing more to do.

Baba Is You is a puzzle game where you can change the rules by which you play. In every level, the rules are present as blocks you can interact with; by manipulating them, you can change how the level works and cause surprising, unexpected interactions.

It's incredibly easy to play this one in bursts, but don't be surprised if you spend an entire 10 minute session just staring at the screen and trying to think really, really hard.

Gomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space. Use your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives. Explore a serene and beautiful open-ended world full of secrets, puzzles and hidden treasures. Unearth the mysteries of the past and discover the truth about reality and perception. Change your perspective and look at the world in a different way.

Jump in, jump around, and jump out again — FEZ makes for a great bitesize play session, as each of the levels are quite small and self-contained.

From some of the best puzzle designers in the world comes A Monster's Expedition, an adorable and relaxing open world puzzle adventure for monsters who love to learn about humans. By pushing trees over to create pathways, you’ll explore hundreds of islands near and far to learn about the history of “humanity”.

Any of Draknek's games — including Bonfire Peaks and Cosmic Express — make for brilliant, if frustrating, short-session games.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game that's all about constantly improving things — whether that's the exhibits in the museum, your home furniture layout, or your own cooking skills. There's a myriad things to do here, and the real challenge will be keeping it to only 20 minutes.

Popping into your island for a bit is always a nice way to unwind, or you can take on one of the Happy Home Paradise house designs if you fancy!

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Minit is a peculiar little adventure played sixty seconds at a time. Journey outside the comfort of your home to help unusual folk, uncover countless secrets, and overcome dangerous foes, all in hopes of lifting a rather unfortunate curse that ends each day after just one minute.

There is literally no better game to play for a short while. You can play this one in ONE MINUTE SESSIONS.

Neon White is a lightning fast first-person action game about exterminating demons in Heaven. You are White, an assassin handpicked from Hell to compete with other demon slayers for a chance to live permanently in Heaven. The other assassins seem familiar, though… did you know them in a past life?

Neon White's speedy play makes for action-packed game sessions, which will make you feel like you've achieved loads in just a short time.

DOOM makes it clear from the outset that you aren't the prey, you're the predator. Encounters with foes never come in ones and twos, but in tens of enemies. If you aren't careful, they'll make short work of you. Unlike most modern-day shooters, in DOOM, your health doesn't regenerate. Instead, you'll have to earn it, just like the good old days. DOOM is one of the best first-person shooters we've ever played, and is certainly the best in its class on Switch. There's a certain magical quality about having a game this good on the go.

Sometimes, when you're stuck on a bus or in a waiting room, you just want to rip and tear. DOOM will always be there for you.

Much like its predecessor, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 combines Sega’s Puyo Puyo series with The Tetris Company’s… um, Tetris. Players can choose to play either mode in solo play, or can combine them both in the strange Fusion mode, where both Puyos and Tetrominos drop into your playing area at the same time. The main heart of the game for solo players, as in the original, is the Adventure mode. Just like before, Adventure is a lengthy story mode where a variety of strange and eccentric characters get involved in a bizarre plot about the worlds of Puyo Puyo and Tetris colliding.

While we tend to think that PPT2 is best played with friends, Tetris itself is always a fantastic time-filler, and this one's no different. You can also pick up Tetris Effect, if you want something a bit more serious.

Formerly of Official Nintendo Magazine, GameSpot, and Xbox UK, you can now find Kate's writing all over the internet. She moved to Canada a few years ago, but gets tea imported from England, because she has good priorities.

Stardew Valley; one in-game day corresponds to around 12 minutes, so even a full day is great for short play sessions (at least for me).

I’d also add in Rayman Legends, shovel knight and tony hawks pro skater 1&2

Not having Stardew Valley or Binding of Isaac on this list is nuts.

Consider: Skul The Hero Slayer instead of Dead Cells (way funnier, identical gameplay loop) THARSIS instead of Dicey Dungeons (similar dice based gameplay, but it's a timeloop space catastrophe like Gravity, Armageddon's space station segment and Ghosts of Mars all rolled into one. Murder by Numbers instead (on top of) Picross S, because it has the same interface but tacks on an amazing Ace Attorney style story mode on top of the puzzles but also has a separate just-puzzles mode.

Cruis'n Blast and Wreckfest should be on the list too.

My recommendations: 1. 1-2-Switch 2. ARMS 3. Overcooked All You Can Eat 4. Moving Out 5. Cat Quest 1 & 2

Gee, of all games out there, you've picked the two games that I would absolutely NOT recommend for shorter sessions.

DOOM (2016) has long loading times, particularly when reloading after deaths (and it takes a few minutes from boot-up to actually playing the game), coupled with the lengths of most levels, makes it unideal for longer play sessions. The classic DOOM games, however, from DOOM (1993) to DOOM 64, are much better for quick sessions if you're, say, waiting for a meal or in a queue when out and about as they are more arcadey, and levels tend to be much shorter (and you can save at any time).

And Animal Crossing is grindy as hell. I'd be lucky if I can complete my daily routine in under an hour a day (but it usually takes a little over an hour to do the bare minimum). I also think the loading times are too frequent and too long for this type of game. I would have expected loading times to be virtually nonexistent by now.

For the next generation Animal Crossing game, I think I'd be happy if the A/V presentation remained mostly the same (maybe with better quality textures for close-ups), and with no loading times when entering/exiting buildings and so forth. Didn't The Sims 3 on PC have an integrated open world with no loading games during gameplay? And the AI in that game was arguably far more sophisticated than the cute critters of Animal Crossing.

But for those rapid-fast gaming sessions, games like Tetris and Picross are easy to recommend, as well as any game where you can save at virtually any time. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and Super Mario 3D World are also good choices, with generally short and sweet levels (and by extension, similar platforming games such as Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and the Crash Bandicoot series). The main series Pokémon games are good for quick sessions too.

I would add portal and pikmin 3 deluxe.

I've owned and played most of those. Good, good games. Pick would be Gnosia & Monster Expedition.

I've tended to play the Warriors games often in 1 hour play sessions at times.

Tetris Reconnected Portal 1 & 2 The LEGO games The main Switch racers Triangle Strategy

These games I sometimes play as pick up and play and other times as long sessions.

I mean you could have said "any roguelites" instead of picking Dead Cells, but I guess there's no Amazon link to get referral money that way, eh?

Surprised Celeste isn't on here though as it's a good game to TRY and beat one or two measley screens on. At least that's how I've been with the god awful Chapter 9. Even though I think I've reached my limit on progressing.

I’ll throw in Downwell, because I’m lucky if any of my runs last beyond five minutes or so. Great game, too. Not sure I’d bother with Lumines, though - its sessions can get too long, especially if you’re any good. Which admittedly I’m not (which is also why I wouldn’t bother with Lumines).

You can knock out a single level in Into the Breach pretty quickly too, once you’ve got your head around the tactics.

PUSS! was not a game I've heard of before today, but I checked out the trailer and wow the visual style is not for photosensitive eyes. PUSS! has a lot of flickering visuals and intense colors, so buyer beware.

Definitively missing: A Short Hike Beautiful and very relaxing game, that you can grab for a few minutes and go

I really appreciate the sentiment of this.

Like a lot of people, I work some pretty long hours. And I just don't have the time to invest time in mammoth length games anymore.

Or you can just jam on any of the hundreds and hundreds of Arcade classics & retro console games for short bursts of fun.

I would recommend Elechead for this. I played the whole thing in about an hour or two, had a lot of fun with it too. Might be my favorite indie game so far this year.

Keroblaster and Gato Roboto are quick classics too that really respect your time.

I also second Triangle Strategy. While the game is decidedly long, I really took my time with it and played it section by section and it was super relaxing and fun, even with the tension of the story. It’s almost like the game was designed for hour to hour sessions to play for about a month.

Yay, Gnosia! Such a unique, innovative game. Happy to see it being mentioned on this site again.

Honestly, I guess it depends on what you consider "short," but I've found Monster Hunter Rise and its expansion, Sunbreak, to be great for half-hour bursts of play.

Tetris 99 is an obvious choice. Matches never last too long.

Super Mario 3D World is also a good 'pick up and play for ten minutes' sorta game, given its level-based nature.

i was with you on rocket league until the other day i popped it in for a quick match and it said i needed 12gb free on my sd for an update, took me an hour and a half with ethernet and by that point the moment had passed

There is an endless array of classic arcade games and other arcade-style fare that are perfectly suited for play sessions of 30 minutes or less. That none of them made this list is a glaring omission.

I guess it is too obvious but MK8D is perfect for gaming in bursts. For that matter, Tennis and Golf are too. Glad this is a category now, as I rarely game for more than an hour.

New update for Dicey Dungeons recently, and for free too. Excellent value and I definitely tend to boot it up for a quick session.

Cuphead is 2 min to 3 min per level. Would fit on the list I reckon.

Sonic origins and mania, shovel knight any quality 2d platformer to be honest!

Minit is a good shout. Super Smash Bros is an obvious one. A quick game of turf war in Splatoon 2 works. Donut County is broken up into quick missions and is really good.

I’d also include Wild Guns & The Ninja Warriors Once Again AKA The Ninja Saviors.

The one that caught my eye is Townscaper. Reminds me of the wonderful therapy of just coloring. It also made me think of Sesame Street. I may have to snag it.

I tend to play West of Loathing in rather short sessions as well.

I literally created a group called "Time Wasters" on my Switch, and among them I have Art of Balance, Hexceed, Minesweeper, Akane, and Breakout Recharged. I play these when I only have minutes to spare of gaming. I also may pull out one of the many Arcade Archives games I've downloaded as well.

I'm genuinely surprised neither SSBU or AoC are on this list. Both of those games are pretty much what I refer to as brain-dead fun because unless you were doing the story modes, most of the gameplay last between 5-10 minutes per session, unless you were a psychopath who sets infinite time in SSBU.

Super Mario Maker 2 needs to be on this list--there are literally 10s of thousands of good levels which only take a couple minutes to play and you can just open the game, play a couple at whatever difficulty level you want from popular or endless and then close the game satisfied. And repeat every day for years. Honestly all Mario games are great for short play sessions, but (like most but not all of the games in this list) Mario Maker never runs out.

I'd say Monster Hunter and Arceus are a couple obvious choices. With both, you can make a quick run to farm materials or complete a mission within ~15 minutes and then head back to town and get a satisfying point tally to close out your session. SteamWorld Dig, Moonlighter, and Stardew Valley all have that kind of loop built in, too. There's also just a ton of other level-based games that'd fit in here. A few of my favorites are Shovel Knight, Just Shapes & Beats, Yoshi's Crafted World, BoxBoy+BoxGirl, Dadish, and Goblin Sword. Fighting games like Smash Ultimate, Dragon Ball FighterZ/Xenoverse 2, or Naruto UNS Trilogy are all good for a couple quick rounds, and I'm pretty sure most of those aren't even the ones "real" fans of the genre would recommend. I also appreciate the inclusion of "Any of the Picross games", but there's no reason to stop at just mentioning the ones from Jupiter. There's also indie versions like PictoQuest and Murder by Numbers. You can also play Mario's Super Picross, one of their earlier games, in the Switch's SNES library (english instructions not included).

I love quick pick-up & play, short session games now in my adulthood.

I’d add a few more to this list:

Would love to have more of these types of self-contained, quick experiences.

I would like to add TMNT Shredders Revenge. Super fun, each level is only about 5-10 min. Can beat the full game in under 2 hours.

Slay the Spire???? Really?? Ok I have almost all achievements. I need more one only. I have more than 300 hours played. But each run is about 1 hour+ for me.

It´s not a game to play in 20 minutes. Never!

My "20 minutes" game is Warioware Get it Together! Other one is Dicey Dungeon!

JUICED! was the ideal platformer for me on the road. Loading times are non-existent and it has many checkpoints. Also, the game is a must play and extremely underrated

What's funny about this article is the hardware allows for short play sessions, more so, than the games. The suspending of any game, whenever, helps a lot.

I would add Celeste to this list. Not only is it a great game, it is also one of those I can pull out the switch while waiting for something and get a few attempts of a screen or get past one or two.

I would also add Grindstone to the list.

@PhhhCough Absolute game changer for me as far as home consoles go. Being able to suspend a game and not worry about the console being plugged in or anything and then to pick it up wherever else is great especially for bigger games. Wouldn’t have gotten into half the games I have this generation (especially huge RPGs like DQXI) without that feature.

Islanders is a great shout - had so much fun dabbling with that. Although actually in the later stages the islands last a while and it’s quite addictive!

Elechead is a great recent puzzle game which would be ideal for short sessions as each puzzle is only a minute or so long.

@Krull I’ve been playing Downwell on and off ever since it released and finally beat it last week! So satisfying! Great game and the soundtrack is incredible

One round of Hades is about 20mins which is a good session.

Slay The Spire, The Binding of Isaac Repentance, Monster Train and Rocket League are my go to quick play games.

Definitely the Portal games. Super Mario 3D World has a lot of great bite-sized levels that only take a few minutes to complete. Captain Toad Treasure Tracker is also great in small bursts. Axiom Verge 2 is pretty generous with its save spaces, and even backtracking to one is pretty effortless. Also: Celeste Fast RMX A Short Hike Lonely Mountains Downhill

With 2 preschool kids, I definitely appreciate games you can play in short pick-up-and-play sessions.

A level or two of Shredder’s Revenge in Story mode. A boss or two in Cuphead.

Any sports game. All the driving games. Mario kart is the ultimate for a quick race and gone.

Animal crossing is the complete opposite an absolute time drain that doesn’t respect your time and expects you to commit your life to it.

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